


From Start To Finish

by captainkippen



Series: prompt fills [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 1990s, Best Friends, Break Up, Coming Out, First Kiss, Getting Together, Growing Up, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26791153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkippen/pseuds/captainkippen
Summary: stars-soph said tocaptainkippen:alex and luke in the 1990s 🙃 also alex coming out 🥺👉👈✨💕💖
Relationships: Alex/Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: prompt fills [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953664
Comments: 20
Kudos: 277





	From Start To Finish

**1992**

It started in the troublesome way a lot of things did back then, with a game of truth or dare. They were at Bobby’s house for a sleepover, sprawled out on the floor of his parents’ living room with a large pile of assorted junk foods and a VHS of _Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey _playing forgotten in the background while they stuffed their faces. The game had been Luke’s idea (it usually was) which meant that it had been met with extreme enthusiasm by Bobby and Reggie, who both seemed to think that any idea Luke had was Nobel Prize-worthy, and a grudging agreement from Alex.

Alex _hated_ truth or dare. It was the most anxiety-inducing game on the planet. The questions he asked always felt lame, and he didn’t like to answer the ones he was asked because they could be _embarrassing_ , and the dares the guys could come up with when hyped up on sugar bordered on nightmarish. Once, Reggie had dared Luke to slide down the staircase bannister on an old skateboard. They’d ended up in the ER all night and his arm was in a cast for a month. But agreeing to the game was better than being a killjoy, so he sat back and prepared to suffer.

“Luke,” said Bobby, throwing a packet of Twizzlers at his chest. “Truth or dare?”

Luke seemed to ponder on it for a moment, chin tilted towards the ceiling in careful thought, before saying, “Truth.”

“Are you going to kiss Caitlin at the school dance on Friday?”

Alex fought back a groan. Kissing, _again._ It was all the guys would talk about lately. It was all Reggie’s fault. He had had his first kiss a few weeks earlier with who lived down the street from him, Amy. He’d come to school the next morning with stars in his eyes, a blissful expression, and spent the day telling the story over and over again to the eager delight of Bobby and Luke. Personally, Alex couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. It wasn’t that he thought Amy was ugly or anything, she was a nice looking girl by all standards, but the idea of kissing her seemed… weird. 

Then again, the idea of kissing any girl seemed weird, if he was honest.

Luke grinned, his face all mischief, and all of a sudden Alex found himself desperately curious about the answer. Caitlin and Luke had been going out for two weeks now – Alex had experienced the embarrassment firsthand of Livi, Caitlin’s best friend, coming over to them at lunch to ask him if he liked her – and he’d been third-wheeling since. God forbid they started _kissing_ around him. It was awkward enough already.

“Only time will tell, my friends,” Luke said grandly, making the others laugh.

Luke must’ve caught Alex’s sigh of relief because he threw a chip at him, grinning. 

“What about you, ‘Lex?”

“Why would I kiss _your_ girlfriend?”

“Oh, c’mon. You know what I meant. Anyone you plan on kissing anytime soon?”

Three pairs of eyes stared at him intently. He picked at the edge of the rug, feeling as though his face was on fire. 

“How should I know?”

“There must be _someone_ ,” Bobby said. “What about Laura Taylor? She likes you. Her friend Maddie told me.”

“Or Jessica Fisher,” Reggie piped up. “She said she likes your smile, whatever that means.”

“No, I–”

“Louise Maddox is pretty fine,” Luke offered slyly. “She would _definitely_ make out with you.”

“–I’m not–”

“What about–” Reggie started, but Alex couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m not interested in kissing anybody!” he snapped.

The room went deafeningly silent. Luke glanced at Bobby and Reggie, confused, who both shrugged in response.

“ _Okay_ then _..._ ” Luke said, clearing his throat. “Moving on. Uh, Reg. Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” he said. And that was that.

Later that night, when the lights were out and they’d been asked to shut up by Bobby’s parents no less than three times, Alex rolled over in his sleeping bag to find Luke looking at him. He had a determined expression on his face, and Alex groaned internally at the sight of it, that was never good news. 

“What?” he hissed.

Reggie’s snores reverberated around the room. He’d fallen asleep about half an hour before Bobby, dead to the world and leaving them free to draw a curling moustache on his upper lip in sharpie. Alex wished he’d fallen asleep first instead. Even if it meant waking up with some cartoon facial hair, it was better than being interrogated.

“Nothing,” Luke whispered. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay is all.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, I mean you kinda bit our heads off earlier, y’know… during truth or dare. What was that about?”

Alex gave an awkward shrug. Truthfully, he didn’t know why it bothered him so much. It’s not like the guys were wrong, there _were_ girls that seemed like they might want to kiss him, but the problem was he didn’t think he wanted to kiss any of them. How were you supposed to tell if someone was the right person for that kind of thing? What if it went wrong and he was stuck forever in some girl’s memory as the guy who couldn’t kiss?

“I don’t know, man. Girls… kissing... the whole just makes me nervous.”

“Everything makes you nervous.”

“Yeah, but like... what if I do it wrong? What if I mess it up and she laughs or something?”

Luke rolled his eyes. 

“You worry too much. It’s easy, you won’t mess it up.”

“How would you know? It’s not like you’ve kissed anybody either.”

That mischievous glimmer was back in his eye. He shuffled a little closer to Alex.

“Can I tell you a secret? I already kissed Caitlin. Last week, under the bleachers.”

Alex’s stomach gave an unpleasant lurch. Great, now everyone had had their first kiss but him. 

“Was it… was it good?”

Luke nodded, smiling to himself with a happy sigh. “Girls, man. You know?”

No.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Look,” Luke said, inching towards him again until their noses were only centimetres away from touching. “If you’re really bugging about the whole kissing thing, then maybe you just need some practice.”

He licked his lips. Alex’s throat went dry.

“W-what do you mean?” he stammered.

“Well… I could kiss you.”

“ _You?”_

 _But you’re a_ _guy,_ Alex thought. _You’re my best friend. Guys don’t kiss each other. Best friends don’t kiss each other._

“It’s just practice,” Luke murmured, leaning in closer. “Loads of guys do it. It’s normal.”

If it was normal, then why was Alex’s heart thumping so hard?”

“Okay,” he whispered back, and they closed the distance.

Luke’s lips were soft and warm, and Alex felt the breath leave him as strange tingles shot through his body. It only lasted a moment, a couple of seconds where they were suspended in the air and nobody else existed, and then Reggie let out a particularly loud grunt as he rolled over in his sleep. They pulled apart, blinking. 

“See,” Luke said. “That was good. You’re a pro already. You’ve got nothing to worry about, man. When you get a girlfriend she’s not gonna know what hit her.”

A girlfriend. Right. Alex forced out a quiet laugh as Luke rolled away with a smile. He stared up at the ceiling, steadying his breaths, wondering why he felt so deflated. Luke was right, it hadn’t been so bad. At least he knew what it was like now. 

He fell asleep thinking about the press of Luke’s mouth and trying, desperately, to wish it had been Louise Maddox instead.

**1993**

A year after the kissing incident, a lot of things had changed. First and foremost, the guys had started a band. After a lot of begging and months of practising with the ancient acoustic Fender in the school music room, Luke’s parents had finally given in and bought him a guitar for his birthday. This resulted in his already alarming fixation on music turning into a sort of passionate frenzy which drove his family a little bit crazy. Fortunately, he and his friends were on the same wavelength. Alex had always liked whaling on his drums during his free time, it was soothing, and now he got to share that with the rest of the guys too. It was pretty sweet. They could almost play all of Green Day’s _Welcome To Paradise_ now (and only slightly offbeat).

The second thing, which was almost as important as the band, although he was mostly choosing to ignore it, Alex had figured out why he didn’t want to date girls. It had taken countless agonising sleepless nights, several secret trips to the library to flip through some dusty books hidden in the very back of the biology section, and one copy of _Rolling Stone Magazine_ from which Kurt Cobain’s face stared out with an alluring moodiness that made Alex feel hot all over, for the realisation to snap into place. Alex was gay. 

This newfound knowledge had given him both a profound sense of relief and a new level of anxiety to deal with. While he enjoyed finally understanding himself a little better, he still had yet to tell the guys… or anyone else for that matter. It wasn’t that he didn’t _want_ to, he did, but every time he thought about coming out his own fear enveloped him. Horrible questions would whirl about in his head one after another; what if they reacted badly? What if they stopped speaking to him? What if they told everybody else and Alex ended up on the wrong end of a beating from the other kids at school? 

What if _Luke_ thought it was weird?

And so life went on. Alex said nothing, the boys continued to go nuts over girls in a way he could not wrap his head around, and he pretended not to notice the way his hands would get a little shaky every time Luke slung an arm around him or sung at him during practice. 

It was just a normal Tuesday afternoon the day it came to a head. Having not yet acquired a better practice space the band was gathered in the music room after the final bell. Reggie was the last there, he bounded into the room with blind exuberance that he almost knocked a full line of music stands down in the process. 

“Good news!” He announced and pointed at Alex. “You, my friend, have a date.”

Bobby and Luke looked around at him in surprise. Alex couldn’t blame them, he had no idea what was going on. Was this some kind of prank? 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Monique Reyes needs someone to come on a double date with her and her friend, you know the cute blonde one she’s always with? She asked me if I knew anyone and I thought ‘I know the perfect dude’, so I told her you would go! Isn’t that great?”

Luke sniggered. Alex groaned. 

“Why would you do that?”

Reggie blinked. 

“I don’t know, dude… I thought you’d be happier about it. I know you get nervous about the whole dating thing, so I figured if I fixed it up for you maybe you’d be less…” he made a wild gesture with his hands. “You know?”

“Did you ever consider the reason I don’t date girls is 'cause I don’t want to?” Alex huffed, then froze in horror.

He hadn’t meant to say it like that. The room fell silent. Luke stopped tuning his guitar, Bobby’s hands had gone still where they had been fiddling with an amp, and Reggie was looking at him in confusion. Oh God, he thought to himself. There was no coming back from that. 

He could laugh it off, say he was kidding or make a stupid joke about wanting to date aliens or something instead, but there was a part of him that _knew_. He couldn’t go on like this. He couldn’t keep pretending he cared when Reggie pointed out a cute girl or giving vague answers to questions about crushes and types, and he couldn’t keep hiding this huge part of himself from his friends. It made him feel awful, ashamed, he just wanted it to be over with. Wiping his palms on his hoodie, he tried to ignore the intense clamminess that had overtaken him. 

“I… I don’t want to date girls,” he said again, quietly. “I’m gay.”

They all looked at one another. It was as though they were having a silent conversation using only their eyes. Alex’s heart was pounding so hard he thought they must be able to hear it. This was it. They were going to leave him. They were going to call him disgusting and kick him out of the band. Luke put his guitar down and walked forwards. Alex braced himself for a punch.

But the punch never came. Instead, two strong arms took him in their embrace. A second later, two more bodies joined the hug. Alex stood there with arms hanging limply by his sides as his friends held him. 

“Uh… guys?” he asked. “Did you hear what I said?”

“We heard,” Reggie mumbled into his shoulder. “We don’t care.”

“...you don’t.”

He couldn’t believe it. It was too good to be true. 

“Why would we?” Bobby asked.

“You’re our best friend,” Luke said, pulling back and placing a firm hand on his shoulder as he gazed at him intensely. “If you wanna date dudes then that’s cool. We’re not going anywhere.”

Tears pricked at his eyes and he choked back a sob of relief. Grinning, Luke pulled him back into the hug and patted his back. They all stood there for a moment, motionless in their warm bundle until Reggie broke the silence.

“So who _do_ you wanna date?”

Alex thumped him.

**1994 Pt. I**

The summer of 1994 was a whirlwind of excitement. The band had started booking gigs – they were small ones, local coffee shops and once even a book club, but they were gigs all the same. People had even started coming to see them specifically, including (much to the delight of Reggie and Bobby) a gaggle of excitable girls from the next school over. They had a practice space now – a dusty garage studio rented out to them by a businesswoman who was rarely home – and a whole setlist of original songs, ones they’d worked hard on and actually sounded _good_. Luke had found out about some guy with a recording studio set up in his basement downtown and they had been carefully filling a jar with every penny they could find ever since in order to pay for sessions. They were making an _album._ A real, professionally produced record. They were ecstatic. Alex was having the time of his life meeting new people on the music scene, going over new drum solos with the guys and finally feeling like they were going _somewhere_ with this thing, even if he didn’t know where ‘somewhere’ was yet. 

At home, things were a little less fun. He had come out to his parents just before the end of the school year. They didn’t react _badly_ per se, but the atmosphere of the house had been tense and uncomfortable ever since. His dad wouldn’t even look at him some days. He’d ended up crashing on the couch at the studio on the nights where it had become truly unbearable. This seemed to inspire a sense of unbridled rage in Luke, whose relationship with his own parents was also fraught with tension (though for different reasons), and thus resulted in Alex having company when he did. 

It was one of those nights when it happened. Luke and Alex were alone in the studio, Reggie having gone home for dinner and Bobby out on a date. They were sprawled out on the couch. Luke had his six-string and a notebook of lyrics in his lap, and Alex had the pleasure of watching as he absentmindedly twanged away at the guitar only to pause ever so often, put his pick between his teeth, and scribbled something down on the page. Lazy nights like this were his favourite. With the warm air of the evening floating through the windows and the soothing sounds of the cicadas chirping outside, he found himself drifting off to sleep, only half-waking up when Luke jostled him as he got up to change his clothes.

Alex’s stomach flipped when Luke pulled off his shirt. He ignored it with practised ease. That had been happening more and more lately; he was always noticing the flex of Luke’s hands or the stretch of bare skin at his hip where his shirt rode up when he played his guitar or the way he bit his lip when he was concentrating. It was distracting, but he dealt with it. There was nothing else he could do really. 

“Can I ask you something?” Luke asked, turning around suddenly. 

Alex’s eyes snapped up to his face, but he was half a second too late and Luke grinned smugly. That was the problem with Alex always noticing Luke – Luke noticed him right back. He was certain he must know about his crush by now, it was just lucky he didn’t seem to find it weird. 

“Sure.”

“How did you know you were into dudes?”

“Oh,” Alex said in surprise, momentarily caught off-guard. “Uh… I don’t know really. I guess I’ve always sort of known. I never really got it when you guys would go on about how hot girls were and stuff. Why do you ask?”

Luke shrugged. Now that Alex was more awake, he couldn’t help but notice the nervous energy he almost seemed to thrum with. He kept bouncing back and forth on his heels, frowning.

“‘Cause like… _girls_ , right? Girls are hot, you know–”

“No.”

“–but _guys_ … ”

He sat back down on the couch and Alex tried to ignore the goosebumps that rose on his arm thanks to the warm contact of Luke’s shoulder pressing into his. He looked away, staring resolutely at one spot on the opposite wall. He really wished Luke had put on another shirt.

“I made out with a guy,” Luke said suddenly.

Alex blinked in surprise.

“...last month,” he continued. “You remember after that party we played in Glendale? The guy with the van? It was good. Like… _really_ good.”

That was a good party. They’d been paid in beer and phone numbers mostly. Luke had gone missing for an hour or two at one point and they’d all assumed he’d snuck off with one of the many girls batting their eyelashes at him. Nobody had questioned his absence. 

“So you're saying...?” Alex asked.

“I think I like guys,” Luke nodded. “But… I don't know. I’m confused. I’m not _gay,_ you know? I like girls. I _love_ girls. Girls are hot.”

“So you’ve said,” he said dryly, reaching for his drink. He needed sugar if they were going to keep up this conversation.

“So how did you know?”

“Uh, I just kinda… did.” Alex shrugged. “Like I never got why you and Bobby and Reg were so obsessed with talking to girls or looking at those magazines and stuff, you know?”

Luke hummed, nodding to himself. 

“Do you think you can like both?” he asked.

Alex thought about it for a moment. He couldn’t see why not. If you could like only boys and you could like only girls, then surely you could like them both at once too. He didn’t feel that way himself about girls, but it made sense for Luke he thought. Luke, who was the human embodiment of a golden retriever puppy and loved more freely than anyone else Alex knew, could like both.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think you can.”

They sat for a moment in thoughtful silence. It was strange, Alex thought, how easy things with Luke felt all the time… even the conversations that should be tough by definition. They understood each other.

“Do you remember that time we kissed? On Bobby’s fourteenth birthday?” Luke asked.

How could he forget? It had been his first kiss, maybe even part of the reason he figured out he was gay. It was burned into his memory forever. He nodded.

“I know I said it was just practice at the time,” he went on. “But I really kinda just wanted to kiss you.”

“You did?” Alex asked in surprise.

Luke nodded, edging closer.

“I kinda still do.”

Alex saw it coming, but it didn’t stop the shock of it. It was like lightning. Luke’s lips on his, his hands tangling in Alex’s hair as he pulled him closer, the easy way they slotted together... it was a heavy frantic mess of a kiss, the kind he’d dreamed about in the past, and for a moment he was so lost in it that he forgot where they were. Then reality came crashing in and he jerked back, trying to catch his breath. Luke looked at him, mouth red, with a mingled expression of confusion and disappointment.

“What are you doing?” Alex breathed.

“Uh… kissing you?”

“No, but _why_?”

“Because I wanted to,” Luke frowned. “I kinda thought that you wanted to too… sorry.”

“You wanted to kiss me?”

“Well yeah.”

“...you know I’m not here to experiment with, just because I like guys, right?” 

“I know, ‘Lex. I didn’t do it because I’m like… lost, or whatever. I did it because I think you’re cute and I wanted to kiss you, I’ve _been_ wanting to kiss you, for a while now.”

_“Oh.”_

“Yeah.”

“I– uh. I wanted to kiss you too,” Alex admitted awkwardly. 

Luke grinned. “I know. You’re not the best at being subtle.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“I know,” he snorted. “So… can we…?” 

His eyes were so big and hopeful, and the butterflies filling Alex’s stomach were unbearable, so it only felt fair to lean back in and let Luke kiss him again. And again. And again.

So began their brief summer affair. In the future, looking back on it, they would laugh. They would reminisce about how they’d been fumbling messes, too young and restless to know what they were doing really, but they would know it was worth it in the end. Looking back, Alex wouldn’t change it for the world.

**1994 Pt. II**

It ended not with a bang but with a sigh. Neither of them was bitter about it, in fact, it was hard to be sad at all. That was the thing about dating your best friend, sometimes it came to a point where you realised something had changed. Alex had woken up one day to see Luke’s bare arm dangling over the side of the couch they’d fallen asleep on and felt a familiar fondness bloom in his chest. But that’s all it was – fondness. As he lay there, he realised he no longer shook with anticipation when their hands brushed, there were no butterflies in his gut when Luke smiled at him anymore, and that ache in his chest when he thought about him had disappeared.

The love he felt for Luke was the same as it always had been, not a bit of romance in sight. They were best friends, two peas in a pod… brothers. Crushes faded, but real friendship didn’t.

Calling it quits was a mutual agreement. It turned out Luke had been having the same realisation. It didn’t hurt like Alex thought it would, if anything he was just grateful to still have Luke in his life at all. 

“You’ll always be my best friend, you know that right?” Luke asked.

“I know,” Alex smiled. “And you’ll always be mine.”

And when they hugged it didn’t feel like an ending. They would always be together, just not as a couple. Sometimes, Alex had learned, breaking up was just a part of growing up, and that was okay.


End file.
